The American antiwar movement (Pt. 1 of 2)

The literary plutocrats of the punditocracy have been wracking their brains lately to make sense of the antiwar movement in America.  Partly because they equate "movement" with street demonstrations, they are genuinely surprised that the Iraq War has become so incredibly unpopular.  Gosh, how could the Big Pundits possibly have predicted that a war launched to great fanfare to find "weapons of mass destruction" that allegedly threatened a "mushroom cloud" in an American city any day, that a war like that would become terribly unpopular when it turned out that the justification for war was, like, totally bogus?

How could it be, that after years of turning points and tipping points and endless optimistic predictions from the trustworthy Bush administration and an unbroken string of pronouncements of progress and victories and insurgents killed and weapons captured from our infallible generals, why, why, why would the war become so unpopular?

The Iraq War and the general militarization of foreign and domestic policies committed by the Bush administration under the rubric of the GWOT (global war on terrorism) has exposed some serious, deep-rooted problems in American society.  And while the Republicans rave on about the Liberal Press Conspiracy, some of the real weaknesses of the mainstream press have been laid bare for those in the "reality-based community" who are willing to look at them.  The best shorthand to describe them? Judith Miller.

It's a major sign of the dysfunction of our Potemkin "press corps" that one of the more sensible commentators on the Iraq War has been Chris Matthews, widely known as "Tweety" in Liberal Blogostan.  Bob "the Daily Howler" Somerby has been one of Tweety's most severe critics, citing him as one of the worst "journalists" in the business.  But Somerby gives him credit on the war.

Somerby's been harshing on liberal bloggers for the last year or so, and his commentary on that topic can be faulted for failing to fully appreciate the difference between news-and-politics blogging in general - is anyone calling it "blogism" yet? - and news journalism.  But he has a decent point in criticizing bloggers for being careless in assuming that because Tweety is generally useless across the board on most issues, his commentary on the Iraq War is an exception.

On Friday, the Howler wrote:

Matthews says a lot of utterly foolish, embarrassing things; [Todd] Gitlin has a long list of them in his piece. ([Tweety's] abject fawning to Giuliani continued last night, although Gitlin skips this embarrassing theme - understandably, since he had many to choose from.) But more and more, the liberal web and liberal journals have begun to cherry-pick and distort claims in the way the pseudo-conservative world has done for these past many years. And the progression concerning Matthews has been especially weird. When Matthews was an unvarnished, unalloyed nightmare for Dems, the liberal world stared into space and said nothing. Now that he presents a weirdly mixed bag, we have begun to complain - and to put our thumbs hard on the scale as we do. Media Matters gimmicks a pointless complaint from a program where Matthews went after Bush hard. And Gitlin betrays no real idea of what Matthews has done for three years.

Matthews says a lot of embarrassing things. In the past few years, he has fawned to Republicans on personality issues - while going after Bush's defining policy [the Iraq War]. But then again, what about us? Do we have to be so much like the crackpots we all used to criticize? Can't libs and progressives be a bit smarter? Or are we really just secret Sean Hannitys, deep in our cherry-pickin' souls?

Meanwhile, despite the astonishing derilection of duty by most of what Robert Dreyfuss called the "press corpse" the other day, there's an honest-to-gosh antiwar movement with widespread support.  And, yes, it does include demonstrations, too.  Lisa Söderlindh reports in "Troops Home" Call Echoes Across U.S. Inter Press Service 03/24/06:

"The most important thing coming out from this week is that the activities happened all across the U.S.," Hany Khalil of United for Peace and Justice, one of the largest anti-war groups here, told IPS. "It reflects that the peace movement really has been mainstreamed."

Anti-war demonstrations in the United States have drawn fewer participants than just before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, but the wide range of local activities "is far more important than one giant demonstration", Phyllis Bennis of the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies said at an anti-war conference Monday.

The nationwide events are "an example of an ongoing opposition to a war that the American people, more than the U.S. administration, and even more than the Congress, understand has no legitimacy left", she said.

Iraq War veterans are taking a more and more visible role in actively opposing the Bush war policies.  Also something to remember for the long term, when jingo Republicans will accuse the antiwar movement of stigmatizing "all soldiers" as "baby-killers and torturers" or some other variation of the whiny white-folks claim that the jingoes will come up with. 

Citing the renowned civil rights and political activist Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. who spoke out against the Vietnam War at a rally in New York in April 1967, Iraq veteran Geoffrey Millard said "a time comes when silence is betrayal", and that time has "now come for the U.S. in relation to the war in Iraq".

Millard served in Iraq for 13 months. "I just happened to be a dumb 17-year-old kid who only needed his mom's permission to go to the war," he said at a town hall meeting in New York Tuesday, adding that it ended up being the biggest mistake of his life.

Söderlind has the highest figure I've seen yet on the nubmer of Iraqi civilians likely to have been killed:

Since the Iraq invasion, more than 150,000 Iraqi civilians are estimated to have been killed, and some figures point to 200,000. More than 2,000 U.S. soldiers have died, and some 15,000 have been wounded, according to the latest figures reported by the U.S. Defence Department.

The PBS Newshour, which is far from the hotbed of incidiary liberal agitation that the residents of OxyContinLand imagine it to be, ran a decent segment on Friday featuring four Iraq War veterans:  Veterans Discuss Iraq 03/24/06. One of Margaret Warner's guests, Marine Corps Captain Nathaniel Fick, who she idetifies as "a platoon commander in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars", took on the accusation made by the President and Republican jingoes that criticism of Bush's war policies or of our infallible generals is somehow damaging the fighting morale of American military units in Iraq and thereby endangering their lives.  Fick debunked the charge by referring to the realities of combat motiviation:

I think there are two factors at play here.

First of all, the active-duty members of the U.S. military are professional volunteers. And as such, they swear an oath to the Constitution, not to the president, or a policy, or an administration. And they swear to obey the lawful orders of the democratically elected government, full-stop.

And so public opinion doesn't affect them very much. When I was in Iraq, we listened on a shortwave radio to protests in Washington and in London, and we had our own opinions about the justice or injustice of the war, but as an active-duty serving member of the U.S. Military, that doesn't matter.

The second factor is that this opposition to the war, growing opposition, is very passive in nature because the war simply doesn't affect many American citizens. During Vietnam, for instance, you saw college campuses as hotbeds of activism. Right now, they're islands of apathy, because most people really aren't affected.

So the opposition becomes sort of a knee-jerk, popular thing to do, or say, or believe. It's not true analysis. And so I think that that's disheartening, and it speaks of a wide civil-military divide in our society.  (my emphasis)

(Continued in Part 2)

Terry Waite on torture and its political consequences for the US

Terry Waite, who was held hostage by Hizbollah in Lebanon during the 1980s has written about his views of the torture issue:  Were My Captors Worse Than The Guantánamo Jailers? Guardian 11/23/05.  He writes:

Western democracy has many attractive features and has brought manifold benefits. It takes no intelligence to recognise that it also has its dark side and that it cannot, nor necessarily ought it to be, exported to all parts of the world. If the optimistic statements made by some British and US politicians before the Iraqi war - when it was stated that the conflict would be concluded in weeks - were truly believed then one can only despair at the level of understanding demonstrated.

The destructive eruption following 9/11 has struck at the roots of democratic freedom. The arguments will continue for a long time about which particular category terrorist suspects belong to. The fact is that on the basis of suspicion alone people have been detained, and in some cases subjected to processes that should not be part of a civilised nation.

Let me give a personal example. I was detained by a group of hostage takers in Beirut because they suspected me of engaging in dubious political activity. They blindfolded me and kept me in poor conditions without any contact with the outside world. They subjected me to physical and mental abuse during a lengthy period of interrogation. Had I not been able to convince them of my innocence I would not be walking free today. What is the essential difference between the methods deployed by my captors, who were labelled terrorists, and those of the authorities that detain suspects in Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere? They have been detained on suspicion and treated in a way that no civilised nation ought to condone.

One must make reference to the belief that sometimes evidence obtained under torture has been used against suspects. Such measures should have no place in a society that respects the rule of law. Such methods must be outlawed. One does not fight terrorism by adopting the methods of the terrorist. When one does, the terrorist has won a victory, for he has succeeded in undermining some of the fundamental values of society.  (my emphasis)

Iraq War: Unintended consequences

"I think we are winning.  Okay?  I think we're definitely winning.  I think we've been winning for some time." - Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the Iraq War 04/26/05

"I just wonder if they will ever tell us the truth." - Harold Casey, Louisville, KY, October 2004.

Michael Matza wrote last fall about how "Iraq is seen as training ground for wider violence", Philadelphia Inquirer 11/15/05 (the link has expired).  He reported:

Increasingly, jihadists opposed to America and its Middle East allies have staged large-scale attacks in neighboring Arab countries, and jihadist supporters have poured money into armed organizations inside Iraq to keep tensions high, particularly between Muslim Sunnis and Shiites.

The attacks at three luxury hotels here last week in which three suicide bombers killed 57 people - mostly Jordanians -and wounded hundreds, are just the latest examples on a growing list of international targets.

Amid allegations that foreign fighters flow through Syria into Iraq, deadly border clashes between U.S. and Syrian soldiers, and al-Qaeda attacks in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and now Jordan, it appears the first steps toward democracy in Iraq have done little to bring stability to the region. Nor have they stopped Iraq's chaos from spilling dangerously across the Middle East.  (my emphasis)

This article is datelined for Amman, Jordan, and has particular reference to the then-recent terrorist attack on hotels there.  Matza also writes:

"The consequences of the absence of a clear strategy to contain the aftermath of the war in Iraq are reflected on neighboring countries and probably on the world as a whole," said Nasser Lozi, Jordan's former information minister.

One of those consequences, experts say, is how Iraq has become a breeding ground for exportable violence.

"It has actually replaced the role of Afghanistan in the late 1980s in providing a training ground... in suicide bombings and war-of-attrition tactics," said Jordanian political analyst Rana Sabbagh, a former editor in chief of the Jordan Times.

Jordan "is a legitimate target in the eyes [of al-Qaeda]," said Sabbagh, because of Amman's close relations with the U.S. administration, its logistical support for U.S. operations in Iraq, and its signing of the 1994 bilateral peace treaty with Israel.

"Everyone was... warning the Americans that invading Iraq would be like opening Pandora's box," said George Hawatmeh, Jordan's former information chief in Washington, who recently returned to Amman. "Iraq would be broken up into states, causing instability in the region and accordingly, regional violence would spread."  (my emphasis)

That sounds oddly similar to what US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said earlier this month:  "We have opened the Pandora's box and the question is, what is the way forward?"

"Wars are easy to get into, but hard as hell to get out of." - George McGovern and Jim McGovern 06/06/05

Iraq War: According to the strategy

"I think we are winning.  Okay?  I think we're definitely winning.  I think we've been winning for some time." - Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the Iraq War 04/26/05

"I just wonder if they will ever tell us the truth." - Harold Casey, Louisville, KY, October 2004.

I've just been browsing through the official National Strategy for Victory in Iraq (Nov 2005).

It's really just an extended set of Bush administration talking points.  But it can make for some at least mildly interesting reading:

With democratization has come the emergence of new groups, not all of whom have shared the goal of a free, pluralistic, and democratic Iraq. Some groups – like members of the Mahdi Militia – have sought to maximize discontent with the Coalition presence and have at times clashed violently with other parties.

Muqtada al-Sadr's group - the "Mahdi Militia" in the Strategy's words - are now part of the Shi'a government we have been backing. 

Do the leading groups in the government like SCIRI and Da'wa really share "goal of a free, pluralistic, and democratic Iraq"?  It hasn't looked a lot like it lately.

The continued existence and influence of militias and armed groups, often affiliated with political parties, hamper the rule of law in some parts of Iraq. These groups have also infiltrated the police forces and sparked violent exchanges in areas of the country that are otherwise peaceful.

Those same militia and armed groups to a large extent are the Iraqi army and police forces.

"Wars are easy to get into, but hard as hell to get out of." - George McGovern and Jim McGovern 06/06/05

The Republican culture of corruption

From California's 'Duke' heads to the pokey by Joe Conason WorkingforChange.com 12/06/05:

Has the capital been infected by a “culture of corruption”? That culture has existed for well over a century, in both parties, at least since Mark Twain described Congress as America's only native criminal class. Before the Republicans won control of the House in 1994, its Democratic overlords had certainly proved capable of self-dealing and misconduct. A few of them went to jail, too.

What has happened since then seems unprecedented, however — at least during the postwar era. The sale of influence has been institutionalized in ways that earlier generations of politicians never imagined. Friends of Newt Gingrich — not a morally squeamish man — say he is dismayed. Members of the generation he brought to power are not revolutionaries but grifters, who have made a bad situation much worse.

Conason also reminds us what a flag-waving public patriot the Duke made himself out to be:

During his career on Capitol Hill, Mr. Cunningham's style was loud, mindlessly reactionary and full of flag-waving bluster. He once described Bill Clinton as a “traitor” and compared Senator John Kerry to Jane Fonda on the House floor.

This hyper-patriotic scoundrel also turned out to be avaricious, deceptive and as eager to sell himself as a male escort. He misused his authority to steer federal contracts to the contractors who bribed him, and he doesn't seem to have hesitated to damage the national interest if his personal interests were served.

Blogging German-American relations and a post on Tony Judt

The folks at the Atlantic Review blog are doing a great job using the "blog carnival" approach to publicize blogs that deal with German-American relations in the broadest sense.

They do the blog carnival quarterly, in conjunction with other blogs.  The March one goes up tomorrow.

One of the blogs I discovered from the December carnival is Dialog International.

Dvicker2 posted on Friday about Tony Judt and his comments in an interview with the "neo-fascist weekly Junge Freiheit" (which is a fair description of that notorious publication): Open Letter to Tony Judt 03/24/06.  He praises Judt's current book Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945.  I quoted Judt a few days ago on McCarthyism.

Dvicker's comments on Junge Freiheit give a good glimpse of the sort of arguments that the radical right in Germany and Austria make these days:

Junge Freiheit stands for the opposite of a free and peaceful European Union, the birth of which you [Tony Judt] describe so vividly in your book.  On the contrary, JF promotes a reactionary völkisch nationalism that seeks to turn back history to a prewar era.  Here are some other considerations concerning JF:

* JF consistently relativizes the crimes of the holocaust by equating them to the firebombing of German cities in WWII.

* JF is hostile to women's rights - promoting a retrograde Kinder, Kueche, Kirche [children, kitchen, church] mentality. The basic complaint of the editors of JF is that Muslim women are outbreeding German women in Germany, which will lead to racial and cultural calamity.

* JF is a racist publication. During the Katrina crisis they blamed the chaos of the reovery effort on the victims of the hurricane - the "blacks" - rather than on the incompetence of the local and federal officials.  The lack of a "racial homogeneity" in the United States was the root cause of the human disaster.

He notes at the bottom of the post that Judt has replied directly to him, and he is requesting Judt's permission to post his response.

Iraq War: Why do they (American soldiers) fight?

Iraq War supporters, including the President himself, like to say that criticism of Bush's war policies or of our infallible generals hurts the morale of "the troops" in the field.  The implication is that some soldier in Iraq hears that John Kerry criticized Bush for not putting enough soldiers in Iraq to begin with, and so he becomes to dispondent to raise his gun and fire when a guerrilla starts firing on his unit.

It's always struck me as pretty unlikely.  Since that recent poll showed that a huge majority of the soldiers in Iraq thought the war had not been worth it, if that claim were true, it's hard to see how we could be having the unbroken string of victories we keep hearing about from the administration and other war supporters.

I thought of that when I read this:  On 3rd anniversary, sense of obligation motivates troops by John Koopman San Francisco Chronicle 03/19/06.  Koopman reports:

People have debated throughout the war over the meaning of the invasion and whether it was the right thing to do. But not the troops.

Which is not to say they don't discuss the topic privately. Many wonder about the reasons for the war, but it's really a moot point to most of them. They signed a contract, put on the uniform and picked up a gun. They were told to go to Iraq, and they went.

In any case, whatever the reasons for the invasion, there is always talk in Iraq of fixing what has been broken. You hear the phrase "moral obligation" a lot.

Meza has a wife and two kids back home.

"They understand it's my obligation and duty to come here," he said. "I'm doing it because I want to do it, not because I'm forced to. I could have found a different job or found some way to get around it."

Why does he want to be here?

"It's my obligation as a Marine and as a man," Meza said. "If I didn't stand up for this, what else would I stand up for?"

Capt. Melissa Schroth, 26, of Westchester, Pa., has been in the corps for five years and is on her first tour in Iraq.

"I had no reservations about coming," she said. "Wherever the Marines need me to go, I go." (my emphasis)

The article does mention some of the strains the war is putting on individuals and the Army and Marines:

For the American troops, the constant strain of moving in and out of Iraq is starting to take a toll. As motivated as the Marines and soldiers may be, their families are having a hard time dealing with absent fathers and mothers.

Oliva said he has missed half of his 6-year-old daughter's life. He calls himself selfish for doing what he wanted to do, and leaving his family behind. After this tour, he said, he wants to find a position in the Marines that will allow him to stay in the States for a while. He owes it to his family, he said.

Meza said he hears more and more stories of wives leaving husbands, or worse - a buddy called home recently and the phone was answered by his wife's boyfriend.  [God, don't you hate it when that happens?]

Retention is down, and so is recruiting. People in Washington have started calling the global war on terrorism "the long war," but it's unclear whether anyone has thought about the impact that line of thinking has on the troops on the ground.